I had my worst year in 15 seasons playing fantasy football. I made the playoffs in only 50 percent of my leagues. In fact I had four teams miss the playoffs, which accounts for 40 percent of my total non-playoff qualifiers in my career in the hobby. But a nice consolation has been the number of fantasy owners emailing me over the past few weeks thanking me for suggesting they consider a different approach to drafting teams, which I termed the Upside Down Drafting strategy.
But the email I got this afternoon from Ronald Eltanal, the $125,000 winner of the Footballguys Players Championship, makes me feel like a champion even if I didn’t win one this year. See below…
Matt,
I just won the Footballguys Players Championship (I still can’t believe it as I write it). I’m writing to thank you for your advice this season, in your footballguys articles and in the stuff you write for your rsp blog. Take a look at the squad I drafted, and you can see it has your fingerprints all over it:
1.11 Calvin Johnson
2.2 Roddy White
3.11 Micheal Turner
4.2 Mark Ingram
5.11 Tom Brady
6.02 Marshawn Lynch
7.11 Aaron Hernandez
8.02 Rob Gronkowski
9.11 Michael Bush
10.02 Sidney Rice
11.11 Jermaine Gresham
12.02 Eagles D/ST
13.11 Donald Driver
14.2 Jerome Harrison
15.11 Montario Hardesty
16.2 Jason Hill
17.11 Stephen Gostkowski
18.02 Donovan McNabb
19.11 Terrell Owens
20.02 Eric DeckerI pretty closely followed the blueprint of your upside down drafting strategy, and grabbed guys you recommended targeting like Calvin Johnson, Lynch, Bush, Hernandez, and Decker. You’ll also see guys who didn’t pan out, like Ingram, Harrison and Hardesty, but it’s this kind of low risk-high reward approach to running backs that made Lynch and Bush the “lynchpins” of my team.
If you need a testimonial or something for any ventures you do on your own, or for footballguys, I’d be happy to write one. In the meantime, I’ll make a few shout outs on the message boards where people have congratulated me.
Thanks again, and keep up the great work you so obviously love doing,
Ron
—–Original Message—–
From: The FFPC
To:
Sent: Tue, Dec 27, 2011 5:00 pm
Subject: Ronald Eltanal Wins $125,000 in Footballguys Players Championship!
Ronald Eltanal Wins $125,000!
Ronald Eltanal stands alone on top of 2,963 other teams as the 2011 Footballguys Players Championship National Champion. On behalf of Alex Kaganovksy, Chris Lambert, Joe Bryant, David Dodds and myself, we want to offer congratulations to Ronald for his amazing team and a fantastic season! For his achievement, Ronald wins $125,000 and a custom-made TitleCraft trophy. On just a $350 entry, Ronald wins a huge six-figure payday.
Ronald’s team finished the regular season 7-4, with 1651.70 points. He was the #2 seed and had the most points scored in his league. Ronald ended up winning both of his league playoff games and took down his league title. That is when his squad went into overdrive.
Ronald’s three week playoff round scoring total was as follows:
Week 14: 178.55
Week 15: 244.90
Week 16: 162.50
That is a 3 week average of 195.31 points.
Let’s go all the way back to the draft and take a look at Ronald’s draft, where he had the 11 pick:
1.11 Calvin Johnson
2.2 Roddy White
3.11 Micheal Turner
4.2 Mark Ingram
5.11 Tom Brady
6.02 Marshawn Lynch
7.11 Aaron Hernandez
8.02 Rob Gronkowski
9.11 Michael Bush
10.02 Sidney Rice
11.11 Jermaine Gresham
12.02 Eagles D/ST
13.11 Donald Driver
14.2 Jerome Harrison
15.11 Montario Hardesty
16.2 Jason Hill
17.11 Stephen Gostkowski
18.02 Donovan McNabb
19.11 Terrell Owens
20.02 Eric Decker
Ronald has some excellent value picks in Brady, Lynch, Gronkowski, Michael Bush and Eric Decker.
Ronald ran a 3 RB, 2 WR, 2 TE lineup for the playoff run. Here was his typical starting lineup in the playoffs:
QB – Tom Brady
RB – Michael Turner
RB – Marshawn Lynch
WR – Calvin Johnson
WR – Roddy White
TE – Rob Gronkowski
Flex 1 – Michael Bush
Flex 2 – Aaron Herndandez
K – Stephen Gostkowski
D – Seattle
They were plenty of winners last night in the Footballguys Players Championship. We will be paying out $1,000 or more all the way down to 60th place. I also want to recognize our 2nd through 5th place teams, as they really, really scored well and deserve to be congratulated as well:
2nd – $20,000 – Queen Maud – Kathleen Augenstein – 708
3rd – $10,000 – JRDogs3 – Joe Pike/Ryan Myers – 707.95
4th – $8,500 – Chosen One – Jared Darling – 705.57
5th – $7,000 – Beantown Patriots- Azzurri – SteveGutadauro/DonTerminello – 697.4
Here are all 160 teams that placed in the FPC Championship Round (scoring is unofficial):[Editor’s Note: I cut it to the top nine for brevity.]
The 2011 Footballguys Players Championship Bracket
FPC Champion – $125,000 plus Custom Titlecraft Trophy – Billsville Trojans – Ronald Eltanal – 736.1
2nd – $20,000 – Queen Maud – Kathleen Augenstein – 708
3rd – $10,000 – JRDogs3 – Joe Pike/Ryan Myers – 707.95
4th – $8,500 – Chosen One – Jared Darling – 705.57
5th – $7,000 – Beantown Patriots- Azzurri – SteveGutadauro/DonTerminello – 697.4
6th – $6,000 – Rackham’s Legion – Mike Gurini/James Lynch – 694.69
7th – $5,500 – CRUSHERS 2 – john holguin – 690.91
8th – $5,000 – Justice Prevails – Gary Berman/Rick Hoehn – 689.2
9th – $4,500 – Fantasy Heros – George Hohman – 687.77